Clinical profile and early therapeutic response to cabergoline of patients with hyperprolactinemia in a Cameroonian population

Abstract

Hyperprolactinemia is responsible for 20 to 25% of consultations of secondary amenorrhea and 17% for female infertility. Dopamine agonists are the gold standard treatment of hyperprolactinemia. Although they are associated with various adverse effects, cabergoline is generally preferred due to better compliance, limited side effects and good therapeutic response. However, bromocriptine is widely and satisfactorily used in a context of limited availability of cabergoline. We sought to describe clinical manifestations of hyperprolactinemia and response to cabergoline in a sub Saharan Africa (SSA) setting. We describe the profile of all patients with a diagnosis of hyperprolactinaemia from 1^st July 2012 to 15^th May 2014 at the Endocrinology Department of Yaoundé Central Hospital. Patients with physiological hyperprolactinemia were not considered. All patients were routinely started on cabergoline at 0.5mg/week or at 1mg/week in case of macroprolactinoma or desire to become pregnant. The duration of follow up was 8-16 months. After three months of treatment, 8 of 10 patients with amenorrhea had menses and serum prolactin levels decreased significantly at month 2-3 (p = 0.025). In conclusion, our study suggests that cabergoline yields an excellent therapeutic response in a short period of time and may thus be cost saving in sub Saharan context despite its unit price.